Mumbai: A special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court in Mumbai will be giving its verdict in the sensational Sohrabuddin Shaikh-Tulsiram Prajapati alleged fake encounter case on Friday. Twenty-two people, most of them junior-level police officials from Gujarat and Rajasthan, are on trial. 

Gangster Sohrabuddin and his wife were killed in an alleged fake encounter by the Gujarat Police in 2005. His aide Prajapati was later killed in another alleged fake encounter by the police.

Here are the main highlights of the case

Last month, special judge for CBI cases SJ Sharma said that he will pronounce the verdict on December 21. The court earlier discharged, for want of evidence, 16 of the 38 persons charge-sheeted by the CBI. These included Amit Shah, the then Rajasthan home minister Gulabchand Kataria, former Gujarat police chief P C Pande and former senior Gujarat police officer DG Vanzara.

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Before CBI took over the case in 2010, it was being probed by Gujarat CID. To ensure a fair trial, the case was later shifted to Mumbai from Gujarat. 

The prosecution examined 210 witnesses, of which 92 turned hostile.

Even as the trial has wound down to a close, two prosecution witnesses applied to the court Wednesday that they be re-examined.

One of them, Azam Khan, an aide of Shaikh, said that a former police inspector  Abdul Rehman, who is also an accused in the case, threatened him and his wife. 

With inputs from PTI